The Marks of a God-Given Ministry (Part 1 of 2)

What does it mean to be called into pastoral ministry? What should churches be looking for in a pastor? We'll find out today on Truth for Life as we begin a series titled, The Pastors Study.

Here's Alistair Begg with part one of a message titled, The Marks of a God Given Ministry. And now I invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the New Testament, to Colossians, and to chapter 1 and verse 24. The apostle Paul is writing to these believers in the Colossae Valley, and he says, Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness, the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy which so powerfully works in me. I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not met me personally. My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God—namely, Christ—in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. Amen.

I want you to know that I'm struggling. Now, these are not my words. These are Paul's words.

That's why we read them there in Colossians, in chapter 2. He says to the church at Colossae, I want you to know not simply that I am struggling, but I want you to know how much I am struggling. It's an interesting word that he would use. It's a word that is descriptive of his apostolic ministry.

It is a very honest word. It is a word that indicates the depth of his feelings for these dear believers. It is a word which indicates the rigorous nature of the ministry to which he has been called.

And it is a word with which all who are involved in pastoral ministry find themselves familiar. The verses that I just concluded reading provide not only for the church at Colossae but for the church in every generation a standard by which we might determine what are the marks of a God-given ministry. What should pastors in general be doing? And how will we be able to assess what a God-given ministry looks like?

How will we be able to assess the nature of spiritual leadership? Well, here we have, in the verses before us, not an exhaustive treatment of the subject but certainly a helpful treatment of the subject. And Paul, in writing in this way, invites the Colossian believers to examine his calling, the shape of his ministry, and his goals.

And realistically, I invite you to do the same. I'm not thinking primarily or exclusively in terms of myself, but in terms of the nature of what it means to be called to pastoral ministry in general. What, then, is the pattern of pastoral ministry? Well, clearly, it is provided for us by the apostles, both by their precept and by their example—in other words, by their instruction and also by the very lives which they lived.

And it is on the strength of that, for example, that Paul is concerned to pass the baton of faith into the hands of his young lieutenant, Timothy. And he urges Timothy, in pastoral ministry, along the very lines that he, the mighty apostle, has established in the privileged opportunities and responsibilities to which God had called him. And so, in looking at what is an apostolic pattern, we recognize that the only pattern that we have for pastoral ministry is the one which has been exemplified for us by the apostles themselves. And while there is an obvious and clear distinction between an apostle—for an apostle was one of a distinct, unrepeatable group of individuals, and a pastor who is one of multiple individuals—while there is a distinction to be recognized, there are also clear points of interconnection which I think will become apparent in the course of our study. In this pattern, then, for pastoral ministry, I want you to notice, first of all, the mission to which the pastor is called. In verse 25 of chapter 1, Paul addresses this.

He says of his relationship to the church—and he's thinking of it on a wide basis, not least of all in relationship to Colossae—he says, I have become its servant by the commission God gave me. Now, this addresses the fundamental question, How does a person become a pastor? Or, better still, how does the Bible determine the inception of pastoral ministry? And the answer is, you don't volunteer for it.

That is not the way it happens. The pastor does not choose his task or his mission. Pastoral ministry is given by God from on high. And that is modeled all the way through the Scriptures, from the calling of God and his servants in the Old Testament all the way through the prophets and then into the disciples and into the apostles themselves.

And the Bible makes it very clear that God is the initiative-taker in all of this. In the course of our leadership development in these last couple of years, we've been working through a couple of books—one with our elders on Saturday mornings. We've been going through the book Know the Truth, which has been some of the best times I've ever enjoyed in this church. And with our pastoral team, we've been going through a little book entitled Pastors and Teachers. But in the course of this book, Derek Prime makes this point that I am suggesting to you. And I quote him, advice frequently given is, if you can avoid entering pastoral ministry, do so. If you can do something else, do it.

This is sound counsel. If it is right for a man to give himself completely to the ministry of the gospel, he will feel that it is the only thing he can do. John Ryle, a nineteenth-century bishop of Liverpool, had no early sense of call. And when he shared his decision to enter the ministry, it came as a complete surprise to everyone. His explanation was, I felt shut up to do it and saw no other course of life open to me. How will you know that you are called to pastoral ministry when you can do absolutely nothing else?

If you can do anything else, do it. For the mission, the co-mission, comes from God on high to unlikely individuals in time on earth. Well, you say, do you think every pastor is there by divine appointment?

Well, I'm not to judge. But I do think that there are clear indications when God has appointed somebody to a task, and there are obvious discrepancies when it would appear that the person has simply opted into it. And therefore, I say to young men who are here this morning, upon whose life God is beginning to move, then continue to seek him, continue to follow him, but beware of becoming like some of these Colossian teachers, who were self-styled teachers.

They were impressive, but they were also dangerous. They were like the prophets of whom Jeremiah spoke in Jeremiah 23, where God speaks through his prophet, and he says of these individuals, I did not send these prophets, and yet they have run with their message. It will actually be apparent to all when a man is in the place of divine commission. So the pattern is that the mission is given by God, it is not simply opted into by man. And secondly, the message is a God-given message.

If you scan the verses that we read, you will notice that Paul says that it is expressed responsibility and privilege, in verse 25 of chapter 1, to present to you the Word of God in its fullness. In its fullness. That does not come about as a result of five minutes of study on a Saturday night. That does not come about as a result of five hours of study. It comes about as a result of hours and hours and hours of study, which is part of the reason that having been called to the week-by-week continual exposition of the Scriptures, the elders in their grace and their kindness have surrounded me not only with themselves but with other men, recognizing the unique responsibility which falls to me and holding my tail to the fire and the fulfillment of it insofar as they expect me to present the Word of God in all its fullness. I have no greater joy. I have no other desire. It is the immense privilege of my life. Long may he preserve me to at least approximate to the wonder of what it is to do that to which I have been called.

Mercifully and hopefully, one will be better next week than this and the following months than the months that have already passed. Do you see, the way that faith is engendered, the Bible says in Romans, is that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Therefore, God would use his Word to bring men and women to faith, and the Bible also says that it is by the instruction of the Word of God that people are built up, that they become strong and stable Christians.

Therefore, any ministry which sets aside or denigrates the place and priority of the message of the fullness of God's proclamation is a ministry that will eventually tend to nothing. That's why, for example, when Peter is reinstated by Jesus and on the morning hours as they meet with one another, and Jesus asks him three times, Do you love me? Do you love me, Peter? Yes, Lord. You know I love you. He says, Then feed my lambs. Peter, do you really love me? Yeah, I love you, Lord. He says, Then feed my sheep. Peter, do you really, really love me?

Yes, I love you, Lord. Then feed my sheep. It's interesting, isn't it, that the shepherd's responsibility is not actually to feed sheep in the sense of taking grass and sticking it in their mouths.

There are peculiar responsibilities for lambs, and especially lambs that are not doing well, to hold them close, to nurture them, to give them a bottle. But you don't find shepherds—and my grandfather was a shepherd—you don't find shepherds sitting with big U's on their lap, you know, sort of moving their horns out of the way so they can read the newspaper, saying, Come on now, eat your grass, eat your grass. The responsibility of the shepherd is to lead the sheep into the pasture, and they eat. They eat. They eat. So the real question is whether the shepherds in this church are leading you into the pastures. Then the question is, Are you eating?

For we don't anticipate that mature sheep will need to be spoon-fed and or with bottles. But the real question is, is the message that is being proclaimed the ideas of a man or the very truth of God's Word? Because, you see, there were people in Colossae who were into all kinds of things, and that's why in verse 8 Paul says of chapter 2, See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

Don't allow anyone to sneak up on you and give you a bunch of bunk. Make sure that the man is a man with a mission, and make sure that the message that he brings is to present to you the Word of God in all its fullness, verse upon verse, line upon line, chapter upon chapter. As opposed, again, to the false prophets of Jeremiah 23, of which it says, I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. Now, the methodology is also clear.

Paul is a preacher, and he is presenting to them, he says in verse 5, the Word of God, and he is proclaiming to them in verse 8 all that they need. He is true to his calling. And this is exactly what we need.

And this is the way in which we ought to assess how well things are going. In Acts chapter 20, he says of his ministry amongst the Ephesians, For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. I haven't kept back anything from you. There's stuff that's been painful. There are things that are hard to receive, he says, but I have endeavored at least as you know my heart to proclaim to you the full counsel of God, so that, as Peter says, after my departure you may always be able to bring these things to mind.

And that's the real test. Derek Prime, again, writing of this, says, It is not easy to be balanced in our presentation of God's truth. William Burns, an early Scottish missionary to China, wrote in his diary how hard it is to unite in just proportions the humbling doctrine of man's inability to come to Christ without regeneration and the free gospel offer which is the moral means employed by God in conversion. O Spirit of Jesus, my Savior, lead me, a poor, ignorant, and self-conceited sinner, to the experience of this great mystery of grace, that I may know how I ought to declare thy glorious gospel to perishing fellow sinners.

I want that prayer to be my prayer. It's interesting, is it not, that the Bible has so much to say about the preaching of God's Word, and yet we live in a time when there is nothing that is quite as denigrated in all things that are happening in the church as the preaching of God's Word? People say, Well, you don't. People can't listen to anything more than sound bites. People don't think logically anymore.

Their thoughts are nonsequential. They read USA Today. They don't read The New York Times. They would be hard-pressed to read The London Times. It has too many words, and they would need a dictionary to read it. And therefore, how in the world are you possibly going to be able to build a church with a methodology such as that?

Don't you think you ought to back it off, back it down, introduce a little drama, produce some dancing girls, make the lights flash a little, make it fun? After all, life is dreary and dull. Surely, we are not going to rely on such an outmoded methodology. Why would we ever do so? And the answer is, because we're told to do so.

It's as simple and straightforward as that. When Paul goes into the city of Corinth that is dominated by the temple of Aphrodite, with a thousand sacred courtesans plying the streets in the evening, filling Corinth with prostitution, when he looked up on the skyline and saw the temple of Venus, which was dominated and preoccupied with homosexuality, when he ministered within the environment of a succession of Roman governors having been themselves overtly homosexual, when he was surrounded by a group of consumers who were interested in dramatic, spectacular things happening and powerful rhetoric taking place, what did he do? He said, When I came to you, I did not come with impressive words of man's wisdom, nor with superior eloquence. I recognized that the Jews demand a sign and the Greeks seek wisdom.

I assessed the consumer expectations, understood perfectly what it was they wanted, and determined to give them nothing of what they wanted. Instead, when I came to you, I came in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my words were not wise and impressive, as I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Why? Because that is the only answer to the drugged-out teenage kid. That is ultimately the only answer to the self-assertive, proud businessman. That is the only answer to the fractured family and to the disintegrating culture. The world says, Do something dramatic. The church in many places says, Do something political. And I want you to know that on the basis of this pattern of ministry, I have done what I am doing, and if God spares me, I want you to know it's gonna be just as boring.

It is the same mission, it is gonna be the same message, and it is gonna be the same methodology. And if that should be something other than it is desired, then so be it. But I have no other strings to my bow, I have no other mission than the one I have received, I have no other message than the one I must proclaim, and I have no other apostolic pattern of methodology than the one that has been given. Well, that's a word or two about the pastor's pattern. Let's spend less time on the pastor's purpose.

What is the pastor's purpose in ministry? If, as we have noted, his posture on the one hand is to make the Word of God fully known, he is equally concerned, and so he says, to see the people of God become fully mature. Now, the phraseology that he uses here is in the present continuous tense. In other words, he is speaking about continual and habitual action.

He is talking about that which takes place over a period of time. And if I've learned one thing in pastoral ministry, I've learned this. You'd better minister with a sense of history. And what I mean by that is simply this—and I tell my colleagues all the time—as much as we may desire to have a significant opportunity at this point in history, all that we may be being called of God to do at this point is to keep our foot in the door for another who will come after us, who will be manifestly blessed, and who will enjoy a great ingathering of souls. So that whether we are apparently successful on the basis of numbers or whatever criteria may be used by people, we do not use that as our own personal manner of assessment. What we do use is to see whether the people who are under our care are growing to maturity, or whether we have a congregation of people that are always on their training wheels, who can never go very far from the door, who are not being prepared to step out and to share their faith. And the responsibility of a father and a mother is to prepare their children for the day when, having taken off the training wheels of emotional responsibility and financial security and so on, the child is able to go off on their own. And that, says Paul, is my purpose.

You're listening to Truth for Life. That's Alistair Begg walking us through the pattern and purpose of pastoral ministry. Anyone who is in pastoral ministry knows that biblical leadership comes with significant responsibilities. And if you are a pastor, our team has compiled for you a list of books we want to recommend to you, sermons and articles that will help anyone who leads a congregation or serves in local church leadership.

Visit truthforlife.org slash pastor to view some of our favorite resources for pastors, or you can look for the list in our mobile app. And if you're not involved in church leadership, we hope you are actively involved as members of your local church. Church membership should mean much more than just showing up for a service once a week.

But what exactly does it entail? In his new book, Devoted to God's Church, Core Values for Christian Fellowship, author and pastor Sinclair Ferguson elaborates on the central role the church should have in our family's lives. And he talks about what our role should be as engaged members of a local church. Don't miss requesting your copy of Devoted to God's Church today when you donate at truthforlife.org slash donate or when you call us at 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapine. Hope you enjoy your weekend worshiping with your local church family and then join us again Monday for part two of today's message as Alistair Begg examines the struggles and pleasures of pastoral ministry. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.